Month: December 2008

  • 2009 Guideline Hourly Rates

    The Advisory Committee on Civil Costs has released updated Guideline Hourly Rates to apply from 1st January 2009. It has been made clear that these are very much interim in nature and that further investigations will be conducted to determine whether the overall levels are appropriate. In particular, this will consider the 20-35% difference in…

  • Expert Witness

    GWS partner Simon Gibbs acted as an expert witness in the field of the legal costs industry in the case of Andrew Reid v Capita Group. The case recently settled on confidential terms.

  • Contingency Fees

    The past year has seen a plethora of announcements as to major reviews into the future of the legal costs system. However, given the damp squib that emerged from the new Claims Process proposals one does wonder whether the current Government really has any appetite for a major overhaul of the system. Nevertheless, one of…

  • 15th Annual Solicitors Costs Conference

    We are pleased to be able to announce that Simon Gibbs of GWS as been invited for the second year running to be a speaker at the prestigious CLT Annual Solicitors Costs Conference. He will be speaking on the subject of “Personal Injury – The New Claims Process”. The event will be held on 30th…

  • Accident Line Protect – The final (?) decision

    Earlier today judgment was handed down in the long-awaited Accident Line Protect (ALP) Test Cases (reported as Tankard v John Fredricks Plastics Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 1375. In previous Costs Law Updates we have been following the progress of these cases but will outline again the main issues. These challenges centred around the issue of…